Have you ever been to an office and seen a staffer struggle with a small flickering CRT-era monitor? Well, chances are that this happened at a SMB that either does not have an IT budget or simply has a policy of using hardware until it breaks.

SMBs need to acknowledge the rapidly diminishing returns when they insist on hanging on to obsolete hardware. This is especially so when taken in the context of just how affordable both desktop computers and laptops have become in recent years. This is the same reason I would consider a functional optical mouseto be a bare minimum for office productivity.

My point is that it would seem pretty silly not to fork out about a grand on a new desktop every couple of years for staffers paid at least two or three times that per month. In fact, amortizing over 24 months results in a cost of less than $50 per month!

Anyway, the intention of my blog today is to specifically draw your attention to the notion of using a dual monitor configuration -- one of the best productivity enhancing upgrades that I know of for the typical office worker. What this means is to either connect two monitors with a desktop computer, or use a standalone monitor together with a laptop with a VGA output port.

Personally, I have been using a dual-monitor setup for at least five years now, and there's nothing like having the display space from two monitors to enhance one's productivity. The key enhancer typically has to do with the dramatic reduction of having to manually switch between applications in order to see them.

Let me highlight some of the ways why I use the additional display for:

• Work on an Excel or PowerPoint document on one, and use the other to access reference materials or supporting documents
• Surf the Internet on one, with miscellaneous applications such as IM windows and media player placed in the other
• When composing an e-mail, while using the additional display to reference previous correspondence
• Writing stories like this, with the additional display used to verify facts and figures on the Internet or published white paper

The above are just some of the ways I use my dual-monitor rig, so why don't you add an additional monitor and give your productivity a shot in the arm today?